Hello and welcome to my new Blog, ‘Words & Pictures’. I decided to biff the old one and go in a more optimistic direction. A blockbusting sequel then, part deux, they’re always better, eh? I’m not a Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, a Kurt Russell or Ellen Ripley, but mayhap there’s some adventuring along the way 😉

I’m jayjayjjetplane, street photographer. Silly name I know, but I’m fond of it, reminds me that being a figure of fun can be just that, Fun. So please, whilst you tarry here, why not walk with me awhile and I’ll show you where I’ve been. I’ve washed my hands, honest 😉

When it comes to photography I feel like I’m playing catch up, all the time. The nature of social media and sharing online puts you up against so many others, unconsciously you can’t help but compare and feel inferior. I came to serious photography quite late in life, I’m 52 this year, which ain’t that old these days, but I have led a life already. You know?

You think by this stage in life that you know the world, eh? But taking up something new, wow that seriously puts you right back down. A Grunt, yet again. In many ways that’s liberating though, there’s no limitations or expectations on me. I guess for the last three years or so, I’ve been having fun, no limits, no worries…..

Ahhhh, but therein lies the rub. Inferiority complexes, the social media disease or drug of choice, call it what you will. If you’re online and out there, you can’t help but compare what you’re doing to others around you. It’s natural and we all do it. If you say you don’t, I’m sorry, forgive me but, you’re lying, especially to yourself. Fortunately my fellow togs are goodly people who inspire me, I do want to be better, to see better and learn.

I guess my point is, all of us want, in some way, to be noticed and taken seriously. It scratches THAT itch. And, being honest, with the people that I’ve worked with over the last few years, I’ve really thrived creatively and, consequently, my aspirations have grown. I’ve helped with some amazing projects and gotten to know some really inspiring people. Some of the places I’ve been I would never have imagined I’d even have wanted to go to! Photography does that to you. It expands your horizons. So, nowadays, I go off piste, a lot.

I get things into my head, ideas, grandiose and virtuous. I am impulsive, I volunteer for things, I get involved. But, for all of that, photography can be quite a solitary pursuit, especially if you want to chart your own path. Honestly, most people just don’t want to go where I wander (gratifyingly there are a wonderful few who do, and I am deeply grateful to them for enabling and indulging me. You know who you are).

Ideas, they possess me. Like the goodly Librarian I trained to be, I research these ideas, make extensive plans, set routes, gather contingencies, waypoints, weather forecasts, set up spreadsheets, lists, set up the kit, over pack my camera bag with unnecessaries plus two emergency cereal bars, cuz you know, sugar. Then I go, out for an age, tens of thousands of steps, with all matters at hand, I know what I want to do, what I need to do. I’m in full-on documentary mode. Oh, I’m not unique in this – lots of Togs are like this.

I return absolutely ablaze with satisfaction, I’ve accomplished what I wanted, plus lots of little interesting sides and happenstances. I feel fucking fantastic. Memory card out, plug in, uploading uploading. I step away for a while, perhaps longer. Going back in later to edit edit edit edit edit, images pour out of me, countless, I share and share and, then what?

What do I do now? Is that it? Is sharing enough? Is that all I can do with them? But what else is there? What do I do with them all? I had such plans, but I feel overwhelmed. I could do this, publish that, make a zine, go pdf, upload to an online gallery, Flickr, Tumblr, Yaddayadda, add them to my website or cram it all on Faceshite, oh for fux sake Jay what do you actually want to do with it all???????

There’s a lot I just don’t know how to do. Yet. Christian (Insta @concreterhythms) placed the idea of an online Zine in my head, and that will hopefully be a go-err, but I need to learn all that from the ground up. I’ve come to realise, whilst talking to wonderful people like Christian and Dave Allen (project leader and muse of the Grid project), how little I really know about making the content I generate into a coherent mass. Social media is easy, but is it really anything but an all-consuming hole swallowing content with no filter or idea. I need to up my game, but what to do, what to do, what to do?

Then it occurred to me, my Blog. I have an effin blog, albeit dormant and somewhat out of funk with where I am these days, but heck, why not re-purpose it and use it, in the interim, to lay out where I’ve been and where I’m going. A roadmap for me (and you). I can share and give context and along the way I may find my way. If you, dear Reader, feel inspired to reach out and give counsel, I won’t refuse you. I’m not afraid of guidance.

So, finally I’ve arrived at the point of all this prevarication and blather (two of my core skills, apparently). My project. Tentatively I’ve dubbed it ‘Underpass’. The photos you’ve seen so far in this segment have been taken over the last year whilst out and about looking at the remains of Birmingham’s 1960s / 70s transport network – specifically the subways, pedestrian bridges and island spaces left over from those times.

I didn’t set out initially to chart these places. A visit to Hockley Flyover about a year ago with my great friend Barry Whitehead (Insta @bazjayuu) sowed the seeds within me. I felt so drawn to these subterranean places, it’s weird but also not. They are part of my history, and I’m not alone in that as a Brummie, though many choose to forget. I grew up with underpasses, they were how I navigated the city with my family and then as a teenager. They were, once, everywhere, ubiquitous. Getting around Brum was a subterranean experience full of shadows, smells and the dirt of Life. They were noisy places, full of shoppers and youths hanging about. They never felt unsafe, but they were cold, grimy places, on the margins of the Road . And yes, at night, they could be dangerous, full of implied threat.

Birmingham is not afraid of self destruction. The shock of the new rapidly gives way to the despair of mistakes and the collective forgetfulness of demolition. The familiarity of bad planning is the heartburn of our city. I hate it. The Underpasses, the concrete islands, the flyovers and pedestrian bridges are what we’ve used to traverse the city. Despite those City Gobs up high annihilating the perceived mistakes of our Past, this network still remains, on the fringes of our forgetfulness.

So that’s what I’m doing. Documenting what’s left, for better or worse. The Underpasses, the bridges, the remnants of motor city ambition, where the people were pushed to the margins by the advances of the Road. I intend to use this blog to document my progress as I edit and publish my images. Ultimately I’ve been lucky enough to have been offered a chance to exhibit some of my best images, which is amazing. But that’s a wee way away from where I am right now.

This Blog isn’t anything fancy. It is merely me, with my camera and my thoughts as I traverse what’s left of these places. They persist, albeit on the fringes, in disrepair, stinking of piss and fly tipped rubbish, slowly rotting, awaiting the fateful rap sheets posted on nearby lamp-posts from the impending demolition gang. Their collective future does seem bleak. I’ll not kid you, some of these places well, they’re not for the faint hearted, especially at night. It is evident from my tours that underpasses (and the connected remains of the wider system they were part of) are not loved or held in any sort of esteem. Most often you’ll find them littered with duvets, cocooning those that have fallen by the wayside, amidst the sharps and spoons of their despair.

But I love them dearly. There’s something wonderfully ridiculous about tunnels for people to travel through, like squeezing fresh pasta through a spaghetti machine. And some of the spaces that were created to channel people into and through (like Gravelly Hill Circus beneath Spaghetti Junction) are astonishing in their concrete grandeur. Underpasses are the absolute paragon of functionality. Straight tunnels under the ground, taking pedestrians the shortest and safest route to the other side of an otherwise un-navigable road. Many of them are ornately decorated in shiny mosaics or tiles, in the sunshine the light shimmers through like a corridor to another world.

I make no apologies, I love these places, despite their shortcomings. I want to document them as they are right now. I want to celebrate them and mourn them as they slowly pass utterly into memory. I’ve had help from friends, putting together a list of those places that are still intact, some in places that I’d never thought to look! From hereon-in I’ll be publishing features on the specific places I’ve visited, with the photos in this post merely a representation, a taster, of what is too come. If you like what I’ve got planned, please do follow my blog, it would be lovely to have you along for the ride. Your comments and stories are most welcome.

Finally, as we near the end of this feature I will say that I’m quite aware that what I’m doing isn’t necessarily that original. Heck it may have been done before, and done better, by more talented and astute people than me. I don’t proclaim anything but a love and respect for these isolated and dis-repaired places. What that says about me, I don’t know. Mayhap along the way answers will become apparent. I hope you enjoy the journey.

Thanks for reading. Be well!!

Jayjayjjetplane